Easy Rider [Blu-ray]

Easy Rider [Blu-ray] Review

Dennis Hopper's recent passing was the final straw in a decades-old interest in seeing this film. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was blown away by this film. We all know the story - a couple of hippie bikers ride out on a west-to-east cross-country tour to retire in Florida after a lucrative drug deal. Along the way, they run into about every permutation of hippie life in the 1960s - commune livers, idealist back-to-earthers, heavy druggers, free-lovers and the like. And they also run into a not-so-nice slice of "regular" America as well. Racists, hippy-haters, long-hair loathers, corrupt cops, prostitutes and swamp dwellers round out what passes for normal in the movie's vision of America.

What amazed me about the film is that it worked as an insightful allegory of the path of the hippy movement - while the hippy movement was in full swing. The film was shot in early 1968 - before the assassinations of MLK and Bobby, the Chicago riots and the election of Richard Nixon had soured the counterculture. So it was wild to see the film suggest the fatuity of the movement, its self-contradictions (back to Nature + smoke/drink/pill-pop your brains out) and its eventual rejection by society at large.

Great performances by the stars. Peter Fonda was the suave and mellow side of the youth culture. Decked in a leather jacket emblazoned with an American flag, he was the naïve intellectual, trying everything and finding everything to be interesting and acceptable. Dennis Hopper was the movement's unthinking, manic side - just looking for the next high, the next lay, the next thrill. Jack Nicholson was the film's tragic, realistic voice. With one world in the straight world and one in the wild world of Fonda and Hopper, he was able to see dangers that the other two were oblivious to.

The 35th anniversary edition is one of the very few movies whose "making of" segments were worth watching. Using interviews with Fonda, Hopper and others, it tells the story of the disarray of filming the movie and the struggle to get it on screen. Hopper's original cut came in at a mind-bending 3-1/2 hours long. Luckily, wiser hands wrested editorial control from him and gave us the masterpiece we have now.

"Easy Rider" - a great film, a fine period piece and an extraordinary commentary on a lost generation of seekers and dreamers.

Easy Rider [Blu-ray] Overview

Academy Award winner Jack Nicholson (Best Actor, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, 1975) stars with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper (who also directs) in this unconventional classic which Time Magazine hails as "one of the ten most important pictures of the decade." Experience the real, uncensored '60s counterculture in this compelling mixture of drugs, sex, and armchair politics. In the role that catapulted him to stardom, Jack Nicholson portrays an alcoholic attorney who hooks up with two part-time, drug-dealing motorcyclists (Fonda and Hopper) in search of their "American Dream." Heading from California to New Orleans, they sample the highs and lows of America the beautiful in a stoned-out quest for life's true meaning. Nominated for an Academy Award (1969) for Best Screenplay (written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern), Easy Rider continues to touch a chord with audiences of all ages.

Easy Rider [Blu-ray] Specifications

This box-office hit from 1969 is an important pioneer of the American independent cinema movement, and a generational touchstone to boot. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper play hippie motorcyclists crossing the Southwest and encountering a crazy quilt of good and bad people. Jack Nicholson turns up in a significant role as an attorney who joins their quest for awhile and articulates society's problem with freedom as Fonda's and Hopper's characters embody it. Hopper directed, essentially bringing the no-frills filmmaking methods of legendary, drive-in movie producer Roger Corman (The Little Shop of Horrors) to a serious feature for the mainstream. The film can't help but look a bit dated now (a psychedelic sequence toward the end particularly doesn't hold up well), but it retains its original power, sense of daring, and epochal impact. --Tom Keogh

Available at Amazon Check Price Now!

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Aug 28, 2010 23:40:16

Friends Link : Causal Male Sunglasses Store. LOWER Prices in The Same Item Simple Human Trash